Things to Do: Admire a 13th-century manuscript, reflect on the demolition of a church, and pub-quiz an exhibition into existence

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Our recommendations – no sponsored content, or adverts, just stuff we like.

Words for my Comrades, a political history of Tupac Shakur

Over in Hen’s Teeth this evening, our music columnist Dean Van Nguyen will be launching his latest book, Words for my Comrades: a political history of Tupac Shakur.

 The book, which has been in the works for three years now, is a dense work of research and reportage, featuring interviews with the late rapper’s friends, family and collaborators, examining the life and legacy of Shakur, as well as his mother Afeni’s role in the Black Panther Party. Also drawing on Shakur’s impact on political movements the world over, from Sierra Leone to Palestine, Van Nguyen carefully dissects every facet of an icon, whom he describes as “America’s last great revolutionary figure”.

If you want to pick up a copy, the launch is at 6pm, and will include a Q&A with Van Nguyen and rapper God Knows. Entry is free. For more information, visit the event page here.

Routes and Realms – al-Masālik wa al-Mamālik

Currently showing in the Chester Beatty museum and library is Routes and Realms – al-Masālik wa al-Mamālik, an exhibition about the 10th-century Persian scholar, travel author and geographer Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Iṣṭakhrī.

Iṣṭakhrī was the author of the book, known by two titles: Kitāb al-Masālik wa al-Mamālik, or The Book of Routes and Realms, and Kitāb Ṣuwar al-Aqālīm, or The Book of the Forms of World Regions. One of only two works of his that survives today, it detailed the geography of 10th-century Iran, as well as its surrounding kingdoms, and Chester Beatty is hosting a 13th-century copy of the manuscript in its Arabic Collection until 7 September.

What adds to the excitement around this exhibition is that the museum commissioned the contemporary, multidisciplinary artist Diaa Lagan to create a contemporary response to Iṣṭakhrī’s study. From Aleppo in Syria, and currently a lecturer in Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Lagan’s work, both in sculpture and painting, is consistently captivating in its delicate beauty and grandiosity, as he crafts meticulously detailed pieces that often dwell on the theme of post-colonialism.

The exhibition is free to visit. For more information, go to the Chester Beatty website here.

€URODANC€

If going to Charli XCX the other night has made you reflect on club culture, then Pallas Projects/Studios might be able to help you on your introspective journey this week. Tonight they are launching €URODANC€ by the Belfast artist Reuben Brown as part of their annual Artist-Initiated Projects programme. 

€URODANC€ explores the shifting terrain of club-spaces past, present and somewhere in the imagined future, looking at how the dance floor is both a “sanctuary and spectacle”, as well as a place of “resistance and release”.

Inspired by the anthemic genre of eurodance, at the centre of Browne’s exhibition is In the dusk we are shadows made of light, but we dance in the echoes of the summer, an experimental film that immerses the viewer in a “sensory landscape of light, sound and movement”, and centres around a multilingual love poem made from fragments of lyrics, romantic declarations and fleeting goodbyes.

Going alongside the film are sound pieces and video works to create a multi-sensory narrative to transport visitors into a club, while also reflecting on the “impermanence” of queer histories. Not only this, but Browne will be sharing a series of pamphlets as part of his ongoing research project, “club [construction]”, which examine the gaps in queer history archives.

The exhibition will run until 5 July. But before that, Browne is also hosting a t-shirt-making workshop on Thursday, 26 June.

For more information, visit the exhibition web page here.

Making Dust

In February 2020, Dublin City Council approved the demolition of the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas. Once one of the largest Catholic churches in the country, it was opened in 1967 during the late Archbishop John Charles McQuaid’s church-building boom.

But, after more than four and a half decades, the replacement of the 3,500-capacity church was green-lit and the Cappagh Road site was earmarked for redevelopment as 110 homes for older people, as well as a new church roughly a tenth of the former’s size.

The church was demolished in 2021, and in response to this, and in response to this seismic change, architectural historian Ellen Rowley penned an essay, which serves as the centrepiece in Making Dust, the 2023 documentary directed by Fiona Hallinan, which is showing in the Irish Film Institute on Monday.

Combining Rowley’s writing with local interviews, Hallinan’s film looks at the cycles of buildings and the community that formed around this particular one, while observing its demolition, an event which she describes as a “rupture”.

After the screening, Hallinan, Rowley and poet Paula Meehan will be joined by Emmett Scanlon, the director of the Irish Architecture Foundation for a conversation.

The show starts at 18.30, and if you want to book a ticket, visit the IFI page here.

Housing pub quiz

If you’ve ever dreamed of merging your hobbies of art patronage and pub quizzes, then we have some good news.

The artist, researcher and the curator of the recent Lab exhibition Liquid Urbanisms, Clara McSweeney, and artist and writer Mel Galley are currently in the process of developing a piece of artwork titled Holdings that was created in response to housing and data research as part of the Data Stories project at Maynooth University.

Holdings interrogates the notions of housing as an investment and how data is used to shape planning. In order to fund this work, the duo are hosting a pub quiz in the Bernard Shaw out in Phibsborough on 26 June.

Billed as “The Great Housing Pub Quiz”, it will be on from 19.00. Tickets are €10 per person, and if you’re keen to either flex on your ability to read a planning application, or fund a new exhibition in exchange for questions and prizes, then book your spot here.

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Flavours of Fingal

Flavours of Fingal, the annual country show, is returning for its 13th year at Newbridge House and Donabate on 5 and 6 July.

Promising agriculture, artisan food, crafts and entertainment, the family-friendly festival is free to visit.

For more information, visit the Flavours of Fingal website here.

Queer Dublin Walking Tour

To celebrate Pride month and get an insight into how Dublin city relates to the Queer Liberation Movement over the past five decades, Queer Dublin Walking Tour is running a series of history walks around the city later this month.

Starting at the Old Storehouse in Temple Bar, and finishing at Dublin Castle, the tour details the lives of revolutionary queer figures, the events surrounding the first Pride protest, and iconic queer spots, current and former, like the Hirschfeld Centre and, of course, Gay Spar.

Tours are on Thursday 26 and Friday 27 June at 14.00, and Friday 28 at 10.00. To book a ticket, visit their page here. 

Make Your Own Minipond workshop

This weekend, if you’re looking for something to do with your garden, the Grassroots Guild will be in the Fumbally Stables to host a Make Your Own Minipond workshop.

Learn how to add a miniature wildlife pond to your balcony, garden or workplace, and leave with a starter kit to help you build your own minipond.

The workshop is on Sunday, 22 June, between 10.00 and 13.00, and you can book your tickets here. 

Sapphic Fragments at International Bar, Friday

Sapphic Fragments presents a night of music, monologues and poetry in the International Bar on Friday, 20 of June at 19.00 to celebrate Pride.

This evening will be hosted by Eva Kelly and Eri Farrell, and will feature performers including Emily Healy, Vanessa Byrne, Niamh O'Farrell Tyler, Róisín Nic Ghearailt, Dafe Pessu Orugbo, Caoimhe Kavanagh, Christeen Obasi and Jodie Doyle.

All proceeds will be donated to Equality for Children, an organisation committed to the advocacy of LBGTQ+ families in Ireland. Get your tickets here.

Under Water by Inga Ryan

In the Ranelagh Arts Gallery, artist Inga Ryan will be launching Under Water, her debut solo show on Friday, 4 July

Inspired by Matisse's The Swimming Pool, similarly her works show bodies and limbs moving and agitating under water.

The show will run until 11 July.

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